Dispensers with web material, such as paper towels, napkins and similar hygiene products are often used in public lavatories as a convenient way of providing a supply of towels in washrooms and other facilities. Similar dispensers with web material are provided for supplying hygiene products intended for object wiping, e.g. for cleaning.
The web material may either be provided as a rolled web or as a stack of folded web. Rolls may often be heavy, and unrolling the web material from a roll will require overcoming a friction and a resistance against rotation. In addition, an arresting force will be required in order to stop rotation of the roll once a towel has been dispensed. Consequently, in such rolls, there is a need for a strong web material which may withstand the forces involved. On the contrary, web material which is provided as arranged in folded stacks does not need to have great physical strength, which usually is inconsistent with the desired characteristic of softness.
Dispensers in public lavatories are often designed with a lock which, in order to prevent pilferage and waste, only can be opened by an attendant. Thus, the products may run out before the next servicing and products may not always available to the user when needed. More frequent servicing means a higher labor cost which often is undesirable.
The selection of dispensers is often limited and they are only found in a few fixed sizes, which thus limit the design of the hygienic products as well. As easily understood, a larger dispenser requires less frequent servicing than a smaller one.
The dispenser is normally hanged on a wall or placed on the floor of the lavatory. To allow refill, the dispenser comprises an opening mechanism to provide access to a storage space of the dispenser for containment of a stack of web material.
It is preferred that the refilling of web material should not be heavy or difficult for the attendant to perform. Conventionally, refill packages are provided, each refill package comprising a stack of web material and a wrapping, which maintains the integrity of the stack during transport and storage thereof. For refill of the dispenser, the wrapping is removed from the stack, where after the stack is introduced into the storage space of the dispenser. Hence, each package is opened and fed to the dispenser by the attendant. Accordingly, conventional packages of web material are provided in sizes that are not too heavy and which easily can be gripped by the attendant, such that the integrity of the stack may be maintained manually while introducing the stack into the storage space of the dispenser.
In a dispenser, the web material will generally run from a storage space for containing the stack of folded material, to a dispensing opening. Hence, the dispenser will define a web path along which unfolded web material runs from said storage space to said dispensing opening.
In particular when it is desired to enable storing of a relatively large amount of web material in the dispenser, it has been proposed to arrange the storage space and the web path such that the web material is fed from the top of the stack.
Large-type dispensers may be provided with relatively large storage spaces, which may contain a number of such stacks of web material. Generally, in such dispensers, adjacent stacks are adhered to each other via their respective end panels, so that an end panel of each stack pulls along an end panel of the next stack. To this end, adhesive tape or glue is applied to the outer panel(s) of the stacks. Refill of a large dispenser with the presently available stacks of web material may hence involve the unwrapping, introduction and subsequent adhesion of several stacks of web material. Accordingly, the refill of a large dispenser may be rather time-consuming.
Thus, there is a continuing need for facilitating the refill procedure, and/or to find useful alternatives for providing interconnection between stacks of web material.
It is the object of the present disclosure to fulfill at least one of the above-mentioned needs.